In spite of widespread support for the sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, international economic sanctions remain a controversial instrument in world politics.
In this blog post, we discuss how the ethical criteria of just cause, proportionality, last resort and reasonable chance of success can help us think about the justice of sanctions.
Photo: Jernej Furman / Flickr / CC BY-2.0
Buying a home is the biggest financial investment most people will ever make and usually involves taking out a loan. A mortgage is the usual solution, but it’s not for everyone. Lack of financial resources is the most common reason for not taking out a loan.
But for some people, the reason is that their religion prohibits interest-bearing loans.
Photo: Trondheim kommune
In Islam, there is a clear prohibition on riba – often translated into English as ‘interest’ or ‘usury’. In Norway, interest-free alternatives to traditional mortgages are not available.
The liberation of Kherson by Ukrainian forces on November 11 was both predictable and surprising.
Photo: President of Ukraine / Public Domain
The strategic imperative for withdrawing Russian troops from the indefensible position along the west side of the Dnipro River had been abundantly clear long before the “difficult decision” presented by the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, Sergey Surovikin, to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on November 9.Read More
Amitav Acharya characterized the current world order as “a world of multiple modernities, where Western liberal modernity (and its preferred pathways to economic development and governance) is only a part of what is on offer”. A world, he adds, of interconnectedness and interdependence, and “not a singular global order, liberal or otherwise, but a complex of crosscutting, if not competing, international orders and globalism”.
Cold War in Africa in 1980. Source: Wikimedia Commons
This context pushes us to realize that there is no general agreement on what shape the “world order” will take in the decades ahead.
What is certain, however, is that Western democracy is declining.
The world is falling miserably short of reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, a 2015 treaty to keep global warming well below 2℃.
The results of this failure are a greater increase in the prevalence and severity of extreme weather events, more rapid sea-level rises and an elevated risk of triggering irreversible climate tipping points, like the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet or the loss of the Amazon rainforest.
Photo: Stephen Dupont / DFAT / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
The speed and magnitude of these changes have immediate consequences for ecosystem health and biodiversity. Further, sustained climate change threatens fundamental dimensions of human wellbeing.Read More
The G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, scheduled for November 15–16, certainly presents attractive prospects for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who needs to re-assert his place among the world’s most influential leaders.
However, he has yet to confirm his travel plans and not purely out of concern about affronts from the “hostile” states, which make up half the group.
Putin arriving at G20 Summit in Buenos Aires in 2018. Photo: G20 Argentina/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
The G7 leaders and the European Union have recently agreed to stricter sanctions on Russian oil exports and on more support for Ukraine, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he would not partake in the Bali proceedings if Putin did indeed attend (Izvestiya, November 3).
The Kremlin is also uncertain about the attitude from the other half of the group, since only three states (China, India and South Africa) abstained in the recent vote at the United Nations General Assembly, while other group members from the Global South, including Indonesia, supported the resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of the four occupied Ukrainian regions (Kommersant, November 3).Read More
Somalia has not held multiparty elections since late 1969 when the military seized power from a democratically elected government in a bloodless coup.[1] The military remained in control until 1991, followed by thirty years of civil war and political instability.
Photo: Garowe Online
After the collapse of the central government, major clans, notably those in the northwest and northeast of the former Somali Republic, retreated to their stronghold territories and formed administrations that restored law and order and provided basic public services. Somaliland (1991) and Puntland (1998) were the first of these administrations to be established. These two administrations have begun to elect political representatives through indirect elections in accordance with informal clan power-sharing models. In Somaliland, the clan elders and delegates selected leaders, including members of parliament (MPs) and the president. In the case of Puntland, MPs handpicked by traditional elders elected a President.Read More
The Valdai Club’s annual conference used to be a gala gathering of Western and international experts who appreciated direct access to Russian elites and expected to hear about new trends and ambitions in Moscow’s foreign policy from the traditional speech given by President Vladimir Putin.
President Putin at the Valdai Discussion Club. Photo: kremlin.ru
This year, few veterans opted to come to Moscow, and the halls of the suburban hotel Imperial were filled with new invitees, mostly from the Global South, where Putin’s anti-imperialist rhetoric was expected to resonate (Izvestiya, October 25).
The speech, which the Kremlin tried to sell as so content-rich that only in-depth research would be able to demystify its full significance, did not contain a single newsworthy point.
The United States recently announced a new set of restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductors, chip-making equipment, and supercomputer components to China.
The interim final rule further escalates the geopolitical dispute between the US and China and raises concerns about the increasing fragmentation of the digital domain.
Illustration: Shutterstock
Destroying the unfair West-dominated and US-led world order has been an emphatically declared goal of Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine, and a massive amount of information resources has been spent on mobilizing support for this cause in the Global South.
Putin meets with Venezuelan President Maduro in Beijing in 2015. Photo: kremlin.ru
President Vladimir Putin has personally led this propaganda offensive condemning predatory and even “neo-colonial” intentions underpinning Western policy of maintaining allegedly discriminatory rules and norms of international relations. He has persistently tried to connect with every anti-American grievance in the world, from leftist traditions in Latin America to nationalist sentiments in the Arab world. This maneuvering is not without success in states like Nicaragua or Eritrea; however, it failed a major test again last week.Read More